Where nothing more permanent is possible, recourse must be had to mosquito nets, which can with care be made to afford a fairly thorough protection during the most dangerous portion of the twenty-four hours. It is a mistake, however, to trust to tucking the net in beneath the mattress, as this is apt to become disarranged during the night, and it is further very undesirable that the net should touch any portion of the mattress at all, as if it does so, the net can be also touched by the sleeper, who thus readily exposes himself to being bitten through the net. The top of the frame of the net should, therefore, be made both longer and wider than the bed and should be long enough to reach easily to the floor, with which its edge should be kept in contact by means of a hem weighted with sand or small shot. I have seen, especially in Calcutta, several attempts at the construction of curtains so large as to admit of a punkah being swung inside them, the top of the curtains being carried right up to the ceiling, and the strap of the punkah being pulled through a sort of sleeve; but the arrangement is necessarily an expensive one, and the swing of the punkah is always more or less crippled by the sleeve. A better plan is, I think, to make the frame supporting the netting very low, scarcely higher in fact than that of a child’s cot, so that the punkah swinging outside, but almost in contact with it, still passes within a foot or two of the sleeper. Such an arrangement is rather awkward to get in and out of, but this drawback is a very trifling one, compared with the enormous advantage of combining the protection of the net with the comforts of a punkah. For this idea I am indebted to Mr. Symmonds, of Rosa, whose contrivance I presume it is, as I have certainly never seen beds fitted in this way in anyone else’s house. For sleeping out of doors in the open, the net must, however, be of the usual fashion; as if the wind be at all strong, a weighted hem would not suffice to keep the net closed. It is therefore important when sleeping out to use a large bed, so that contact with the net may be less likely to happen; and the top of the net should be formed of ordinary calico, so as to keep off the dew. Not unfrequently the mesh of the netting sold for making mosquito nets is too coarse, a point of some importance, as Anopheles mosquitoes in particular are adepts in creeping through small openings; and as the writer has found it impossible to confine them in enclosures formed of the coarser patterns of net, it may be concluded that such a material is equally inadequate to keep them out. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Bed arranged with a low mosquito-net frame, with punkah above it.]